XX международный театральный фестиваль «Мелиховская Весна» 2019

On May 18, 2019, the International Theatre Festival "Melikhovskaya Vesna" will be opened for the 20th time in the State Literary Memorial Museum-Reserve of A. P. Chekhov "Melikhovo". The main program includes performances based on the works by A. P. Chekhov or those about the writer himself. Besides that the viewers will enjoy film screenings, meetings with directors and other special events.

At the jubilee festival you will see performances staged by theatres from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Lipetsk, Donetsk, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Ryazan, Kineshma, from Voronezh and Moscow regions, as well as the Republic of Tatarstan. The Festival playbill also includes productions from New York (USA), Vienna (Austria) and Timertau (Kazakhstan).

The goals of "Melikhovskaya Vesna" remain unchanged: to show all the variety of stage interpretations of the works of the great writer – from classical to avant-garde, to show the audience a modern theatre in all its diversity through the palette of Chekhov's themes and plots.

The main feature of "Melikhovskaya Vesna" consists in the festival program where The Seagull is the must every year. This world-famous play was written by Chekhov in Melikhovo. It was The Seagull, presented by Leo Tolstoy Lipetsk Theatre on the veranda of the Museum main house. This presentation originated a good tradition of our annual theatrical gatherings in the estate of the writer. Today’s playbill of 2019 has as many as four Seagulls which are completely different; each of them has its own accent.

This year the Lipetsk Theatre company actors, who are the father-founders of the festival and its permanent participants, will bring to Melikhovo not a stand-alone play as it is, but a performance based on several stories by Anton Chekhov.

There will be held several special events as part of the 2019 festival. There are two milestone events among them: the screening of the feature film Brothers Ch directed by Mikhail Ugarov and based on the play by Elena Gremina about the life of the Chekhov family and the traditional day of memory of Oleg Nikolayevich Yefremov May 24. The estate will also set forth a photo exhibition "20 years of emotions", dedicated to the highlights of Melikhovo theatre festivals of different years.

The organizers did not ignore the audience of our small spectators. Two presentations of Kashtanka the dog staged by puppet theatres from Volgograd and Ryazan look alike only at first glance. These are two interpretations of the well-known story. They both seem to be touching, but different in mood. You will be surprised with a wonderful theatrical discovery tailored not only for kids.

In 2019, in addition to the Melikhovo estate itself, there will be other venues of the festival: the Serpukhov town Music and Drama Theater and Cultural and Creative Center "Druzhba" (Friendship) in Chekhov town.

One of the performances of this "Melikhovskaya Vesna" festival will be presented in Moscow. Play Ivanov, by Chekhov, will be performed by the State Theater of Nations as part of the festival program on May 29. The premiere of this play took place in 2016, while one of the rehearsals was held at the Melikhovo Museum, where Artistic Director Yevgeny Mironov together with the artists came to immerse themselves into the atmosphere of Chekhov's time. Due to some peculiarities of this production, it will be presented on the home stage of the Theater of Nations in Moscow.

The Grand opening of the festival on May 18 will traditionally take place on the veranda of the main house of Anton Chekhov, where the audience will see a theatrical program "Dedication to the Seagull" with presentation of the teams-participants of "Melikhovskaya Vesna – 2019". On the opening day in the estate, you will surely enjoy a one-act farce A Marriage Proposal staged by THE LAMBS THEATER LAB (New York). Then it will be followed by a meeting with Directors Peter Kingsley (USA) and Aubrey Mellor (Australia). The opening day in Melikhovo will end up with a screen version of the play Uncle Vanya of the Vakhtangov State Academic Theater.